PSF Meeting Minutes for 2011-09-19

The Python Software Foundation

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors

September 19, 2011

A regular meeting of the Python Software Foundation ("PSF") Board of
Directors was held over Internet Relay Chat beginning at 16:00 UTC, 19
September 2011. Steve Holden presided at the meeting. Pat Campbell
prepared the minutes.

The following members of the Board of Directors were present at the
meeting: Steve Holden, Marc-Andre Lemburg, Martin von Löwis, David Mertz,
Doug Napoleone, Jesse Noller, Tim Peters, Allison Randal, Jeff Rush, and
Gloria Willadsen. Also in attendance was Kurt Kaiser (Treasurer).

The monthly Treasurer's Report was provided to Board members by K.
Kaiser prior to the Board meeting and produced from Quickbooks Online.

Here is an exerpt from the treasurer's report on a few of the activities
the treasurer has been focused on:

"YTD income was down by 10K in August. Please refer to the P&L for the
full details. Some highlights:

AR is up by 98K due to PyCon 2012 Sponsor invoicing activity. We
received payment for the Hyatt PyCon 2011 room commissions due to us.

Donations for the month were $2,095.

Grants:

SciPy 2011 $2,000
PyCon Ireland 1,500

Outside Expenses:

Wendroff $1,150

We began invoicing over 70 PyCon 2012 Sponsors. At this time, we're
about halfway through the invoicing process, as can be seen by the 155K
increase in Deferred Revenue. Payments are rolling in, accounting for
the increase in our checking account balance."

Kurt concludes his report with a list of financial business items he will
be focused on, he said:

"My focus is on PSF Sponsor invoicing, Federal taxes, the Associate
Member program, AR and AP reduction. Looking into a server certificate
for mail.python.org."

Board Discussion:

J. Noller: ""I am digging into the CTE issues cited in the treasurer's report:
"AR still reflects the 48K PyCon room commissions due to us." We have multiple
calls out to CTE.""

The following board reports were submitted to the board mailing list
one week prior to this month's meeting. Please see a summary of each
board report listed below and a possible board discussion at the end
of the report(s):

"If the project goes well, we'll follow up with a Python flyer,
translated versions of the brochure and also consider creating
marketing material more targeted at specific user groups or
application fields.

In the long run, we'd also like to take the idea of producing
marketing material beyond printed material and develop booth
setups, giveaways, CDs, etc. to support conference organizers and
local user groups wishing to promote Python at their events."

The project leader, M.A. Lemburg, Moving PyPI to Amazon CloudFront,
reported on progress for the month:

"The project is currently on hold, since the team members don't have
time to put into this."

In terms of having any issues surrounding his project, M. A.
Lemburg reported no issues except one: he said, he just does not have
enough time to devote to his Moving PyPI to Amazon CloudFront project.

Lemburg also reported on future plans for the project:

"Check to see whether a trigger based approach to S3 syncing
wouldn't be easier to implement right from the start."

1. Sponsors continue to line up for PyCon 2012: We have now achieved a record
50 sponsors signed up, almost all of which have been invoiced, some of which
have already paid. This is amazing, and sets us in an excellent position
financially. I continue to drive hard on sponsorship; and I have at least
an addition 10 sponsors pending. I am driving hard on getting fresh leads for
potential sponsors.

2. The budget was approved in its current form; and we continue to update the
current position(s) as required. Our current outlook is extremely positive
solely based on the sponsor revenue. A note on the current level will be sent
to the private board list.

3. The call for proposals was issued, has been under way and we are seeing a
steady trickle of high quality submissions from the community.

4. We are still waiting on AV/Recording vendor responses to our request for
quotes. This is a concern - I'd like to lock these contracts down quickly, but
can not make the bidding parties move more quickly.

We are still negotiating room commission rates with the Hyatt.

Jesse also reported on the new activities for the month. He said:

CTE has been contacted about negotiations and discussions around 2012.

2. We are doing a massive press/blog/email push in the upcoming month to push
the call for proposals. Brian Curtin is coordinating this effort.

3. I am flying out to Santa Clara next week (Sept 21st-23rd) for the on site
visit and discussions with the Hyatt and convention center staff.

4. Activate the Program Committee - I am pushing hard to get the volunteers and
staff activated and engaged.

5. Management of the program guide has been passed off to Yannick, Ewa, Van and
Doug N.

Have asked PSF counsel several times about whether assignment of
derived logos to the PSF might allow us to grant broader permission
(for what would then, hypothetically) be PSF trademarks. Committee
members have opined both directions on whether this would assuage
dilution concern, but we really need legal advice. Unfortunately,
Van hasn't found time to develop an answer to this.

As far as reporting on new activities, however, he provided the following
list of items:

Late July: Discussion of a logo at http://py.codeconf.com/ that committee
ultimately decided was "inspired by but not derived" from a trademarks
perspective. However, looking at the current site, it appears that they have
yet another logo variant; and the latest seems to raise a new concern. So
I'll send that back to the committee for discussion.

Early August: Marc-Andre responded on my behalf to Lumentica, LLC to indicate
that their use was purely nominative.

Early August: Let Long Duong <long@studioart.org> know that we did not have a
trademark interest in the name "PyCamp" and that it follows the "PyWhatever"
pattern of many projects.

Early August: Let Adrianna Tan <adrianna@pentopixel.net> who runs a Singapore
Python User Group know that a derived logo that slightly modified both shape and
substantially modified colors would be acceptable if shape was preserved, but
colors could be modified to fit with broader design.

Early August: Let Yung-Yu Chen <yyc@solvcon.net> know that a derived logo
requested for a Taiwanese user group was a dilutive variation, and suggested
variations that would avoid dilution (thanks again to MAL on this one). However,
I did let Yung-Yu know that the PSF trademark does not strictly extend to Taiwan,
so they are technically permitted to make what derivations they want for use within
that jurisdiction; he showed understanding and their group decided to create an
alternate non-derived logo nonetheless.

Late August: Clarified for Larry Hastings <larry@hastings.org> that his "Radio
Free Python" was nominative use of the word mark.

Late August: Jess Noller made a hush-hush request for use of logo for commercial
PyCon-tie-in items. While there wasn't a lot of data provided the "we trust Jesse"
principle prevails.

Early September: Clarified for Nick Chadwick <chadnickbok@gmail.com> that his
"LetsPython" name and unaltered logo were nominative use.

Mid September: Several "Python in Debian" project members submitted derived logos
that modified the Python logo to combine it with the Debian logo in a dilutive way.
We let them know that this derivation would not be permitted and they agreed to an
alternate logo design that was not derived from our trademark.

Mid September: A complex issue came up with the book Maya Python for Games and Film:
A Complete Reference for Maya Python and the Maya Python API using an dilutive derived
logo. Apparently this use came from an innocent confusion between author Adam Mechtley
<adam.mechtley@gmail.com> (who contacted us) and his publisher Elsevier/Morgan-Kaufmann,
in which they used an informal design suggestion of his without proper vetting. Editor
"Lewin, Laura (ELS-BUR)" <L.Lewin@Elsevier.com> contacted me as well to work out a
solution, which is changing the design for the second printing, but putting an apology
notice on the website for the book to explain the inadvertent misuse.

David also reported on other new activities that are planned for next month. He said:

Get back with Michael_Endres@scee.net to let him know that color and shape derived
versions of the logo suggested for PlayStation®Home "internal use" are not really
allowable.

He also reported on "ongoing projects." He said:

James Costa <james@thephuse.com> made some improved proposals for HAM logos, that were
discussed on the Board list as well as posted to Trademarks. The consensus seems to be
that we should accept one or more of the 6 proposed designs; we need to pin down which
ones to actually use.

RESOLVED, that the PSF provide grant funding of $3000 to Chris
McDonough to port WebOB to Python 3 which is set to begin on
10/01/2011 and finish on 10/31/2011. And, payment for his work shall
be received on or before 11/30/2011.